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A CHARTER, OF DEMOCRACY 


ADDRESS 

* 

BY 

HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

EX-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

BEFORE THE 

OHIO CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 


ON FEBRUARY 21, 1912 



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PRESENTED BY MR. CLAPP 
February 26, 1912.—Ordered to be printed 


WASHINGTON 

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A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 



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By Theodore Roosevelt. 


Mr. President, and members of the Ohio constitutional convention: 
I am profoundly sensible of the honor you have done me in asking 
me to address you. You are engaged in the fundamental work of 
self-government; you are engaged in framing a constitution under 
and in accordance with which the people are to get and to do justice 
and absolutely to rule themselves. No representative body can have 
a higher task. To carry it through successfully there is need to com¬ 
bine practical common sense of the most hard-headed kind with a 
spirit of lofty idealism. Without idealism vour work will be but a 
sordid makeshift; and without the hard-headed common sense the 
idealism will be either wasted or worse than wasted. 

I shall not try to speak to you of matters of detail. Each of our 
Commonwealths has its own local needs, local customs, and habits 
of thought, different from those of other Commonwealths; and each 
must therefore apply in its own fashion the great principles of our 
political life. But these principles themselves are in their essence 
applicable everywhere, and of some of them I shall speak to you. 
I can not touch upon them all; the subject is too vast and the time 
too limited; if any one of you cares to know my views of these mat¬ 
ters which I dp not to-day discuss, I will gladly send him a copy of 
the speeches I made in 1910, which I think cover most of the ground. 

I believe in pure democracy. With Lincoln, I hold that “ this 
country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. 
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they 
can exercise their constitutional right of amending it.” We pro¬ 
gressives believe that the people have the right, the power, and the 
duty to protect themselves and their own welfare; that human rights 
are supreme over all other rights; that wealth should be the servant, 
not the master, of the people. We believe that unless representative 
government does absolutely represent the people it is not represen¬ 
tative government at all. We test the worth of all men and all 
measures by asking how they contribute to the welfare of the men, 
women, and children of whom this Nation is composed. We are 
engaged in one of the great battles of the age-long contest waged 
against privilege on behalf of the common welfare. We hold it a 
prime duty of the people to free our Government from the control 
of money in politics. For this purpose we advocate, not as ends in 
themselves, but as weapons in the hands of the people, all govern¬ 
mental devices which will make the representatives of the people 
more easily and certainly responsible to the people’s will. 

This country, as Lincoln said, belongs to the people. So do the 
natural resources which make it rich. They supply the basis of our 

3 




4 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


prosperity now and hereafter. In preserving them, which is a 
national duty, we must not forget that monopoly is based on the 
control of natural resources and natural advantages, and that it 
will help the people little to conserve our natural wealth unless the 
benefits which it can yield are secured to the people. Let us remem¬ 
ber, also, that conservation does not stop with the natural resources, 
but that the principle of making the best use of all we have requires 
with equal or greater insistence that we shall stop the jvaste of human 
life in industry and prevent the waste of human welfare which flows 
from the unfair use of concentrated power and wealth in the hands of 
men whose eagerness for profit blinds them to the cost of what they 
do. We have no higher duty than to promote the efficiency of the 
individual. There is no surer road to the efficiency of the Nation. 

I am empliaticalty a believer in constitutionalism, and because of 
this fact \ no less emphatically protest against any theory that would 
make of the Constitution a means of thwarting instead of securing 
the absolute right of the people to rule themselves and to provide for 
their own social and industrial well being. All constitutions, those 
of the States no less that that of the Nation, are designed, and must 
be interpreted and administered, so as to fit human rights. Lincoln 
so interpreted and administered the National Constitution. 
Buchanan attempted the reverse, attempted to fit human rights to, 
and limit them by, the Constitution. It was Buchanan who treated 
the courts as a fetish, who protested against and condemned all criti¬ 
cism of the judges for unjust and unrighteous decisions, and upheld 
the Constitution as an instrument for the protection of privilege and 
of vested Avrong. It was Lincoln who appealed to the people against 
the judges when the judges went wrong, who advocated and secured 
what was practical^ the recall of the Dred Scott decision, and who 
treated the Constitution as a living force for righteousness. We 
stand for applying the Constitution to the issues of to-day as Lincoln 
applied it to the issues of his day; Lincoln, mind you, and not 
Buchanan, was the real upholder and preserver of the Constitution, 
for the true progressive, the progressive of the Lincoln stamp, is the 
only true constitutionalist, the only real conservative. The object 
of every American constitution worth calling such must be what it is 
set forth to be in the preamble to the National Constitution, “to 
establish justice; ” that is, to secure justice as between man and man 
by means of genuine popular self-government. If the Constitution 
is successfully invoked to nullify the effort to remedy injustice, it is 
tmoof positive either that the Constitution needs immediate amend¬ 
ment or else that it is being wrongfully and improperly construed. 
I therefore very earnestly ask you clearly to provide in this constitu¬ 
tion means which will enable the people readily to amend it if at any 
point it works inj ustice, and also means which will permit the people 
themselves by popular vote, after due deliberation and discussion, 
but finally and without appeal, to settle what the proper construction 
of any constitutional point is. It is often said that ours is a govern¬ 
ment of checks and balances. But this should only mean that these 
checks and balances obtain as among the several different kinds of 
representatives of the people—judicial, executive, and legislative— 
to whom the people have delegated certain portions of their power. 
It does not mean that the people have parted with their power or can 
not resume it. The “ division of powers ” is merely the division 


A CHARTER OE DEMOCRACY. 


5 


among the representatives of the powers delegated to them; the 
term must not be held to mean that the people have divided their 
power with their delegates. The power is the people’s, and only the 
people’s. It is right and proper that provision should be made ren¬ 
dering it necessary for the people to take ample time to make up 
their minds on any point; but there should also be complete provision 
to have their decision put into immediate and living effect when it 
has thus been deliberately and definitely reached. 

I hold it to be the duty of every public servant, and of every man 
who in public or in private life holds a position of leadership in 
thought or action, to endeavor honestly and fearlessly to guide his 
fellow-countrymen to right decisions; but I emphatically dissent from 
the view that it is either wise or necessary to try to devise methods 
which under the Constitution will automatically prevent the people 
from deciding for themselves wliat governmental action they deem 
just and proper. It is impossible to invent constitutional devices 
which will prevent the popular will from being effective for wrong 
without also preventing it from being effective for right. The only 
safe course to follow in this great American democracy is to provide, 
for making the popular judgment really effective. When this is done, 
then it is our duty to see that the people, having the full power, realize 
their heavy responsibility for exercising that power aright. But it is 
a false constitutionalism, a false statesmanship, to endeavor by the 
exercise of a perverted ingenuity to seem to give the people full power 
and at the same time to trick them out of it. Yet this is precisely 
what is done in every case where the State permits its representatives, 
whether on the bench or in the legislature or in executive office, to 
declare that it has not the power to right grave social wrongs, or that 
any of the officers created by the people, and rightfully the servants 
of the people, can set themselves up to be the masters of the people. 
Constitution makers should make it clear beyond shadow of doubt 
that the people in their legislative capacity have the power to enact 
into law any measure they deem necessary for the betterment of social 
and industrial conditions. The wisdom of framing any particular law 
of this kind is a proper subject of debate; but the power of the people 
to enact the law should not be subject to debate. To hold the con¬ 
trary view is to be false to the cause of the people, to the cause of 
American democracy. 

Lincoln, with his clear vision, his ingrained sense of justice, and his 
spirit of kindly friendliness to all, forecast our present struggle and 
saw the way out. What he said should be pondered by capitalist and 
workingman alike. He spoke as follows (I condense) : 

I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his condition 
but to assist in ameliorating mankind. Labor is prior to and independent of 
capital. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consid¬ 
eration. Capital has it rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other 
rights. Nor should this lead to a war upon property. Property is the fruit of 
labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. Let not him who 
is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and 
build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from 
violence when built. 

This last sentence characteristically shows Lincoln’s homely, 
kindly common sense. His is the attitude that we ought to take. 
He showed the proper sense of proportion in his relative estimates of 
capital and labor, of human rights and the rights of wealth. Above 


6 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


all, in what he thus said, as on so many other occasions, he taught 
the indispensable lesson of the need of wise kindliness and charity, 
of sanity and moderation, in the dealings of men one with another. 

We should discriminate between two purposes we have in view. 
The first is the effort to provide what are themselves the ends of 
good government; the second is the effort to provide proper ma¬ 
chinery for the achievement of these ends. 

The ends of good government in our democracy are to secure by 
genuine popular rule a high average of moral and material well¬ 
being among our citizens. It has been well said that in the past 
we have paid attention only to the accumulation of prosperity, and 
that from henceforth we must pay equal attention to the proper 
distribution of prosperity. This is true. The only prosperity worth 
having is that which affects the mass of the people. We are bound 
to strive for the fair distribution of prosperity. But it behooves us 
to remember that there is no use in devising methods for the proper 
distribution of prosperity unless the prosperity is there to distribute. 
I hold it to be our duty to see that the wageworker, the small pro¬ 
ducer, the ordinary consumer, shall get their fair share of the benefit 
of business prosperity. But it either is or ought to be evident to 
everyone that business has to proper before anybody can get any 
benefit from it. Therefore I hold that he is the real progressive, 
that he is the genuine champion of the people, who endeavors to 
shape the policy alike of the Nation and of the several States so as 
to encourage legitimate and honest business at the same time that 
he wars against all crookedness and injustice and unfairness and 
tyranny in the business world (for of course we can only get business 
put on a basis of permanent prosperity when the element of injustice 
is taken out of it). This is the reason why I have for so many years 
insisted, as regards our National Government, that it is both futile 
and mischievous to endeavor to correct the evils of big business by 
an attempt to restore business conditions as they were in the middle 
of the last century, before railways and telegraphs had rendered 
larger business organizations both inevitable and desirable. The 
effort to restore such conditions, and to trust for justice solely to 
such proposed restoration, is as foolish as if we should attempt to 
arm our troops with the flintlocks of Washington’s Continentals 
instead of with modern weapons of precision. Flintlock legislation, 
of the kind that seeks to prohibit all combinations, good or bad, is 
bound to fail, and the effort, in so far as it accomplishes anything 
at all, merely means that some of the worst combinations are not 
checked, and that honest business is checked. 

What is needed is, first, the recognition that modern business 
conditions have come to stay, in so far at least as these conditions 
mean that business must be done in larger units, and then the cool- 
headed and resolute determination to introduce an effective method 
of regulating big corporations so as to help legitimate business as 
an incident to thoroughly and completely safeguard the interests of 
the people as a whole. We are a business people. The tillers of the 
soil, the wageworkers, the business men—these are the three big 
and vitally important divisions of our population. The welfare of 
each division is vitally necessary to the welfare of the people as a 
whole. The great mass of business is of course done by men whose 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


7 


business is either small or of moderate size. The middle-sized busi¬ 
ness men form an element of strength which is of literally incal¬ 
culable value to the Nation. Taken as a class, they are among our 
best citizens. The}^ have not been seekers after enormous fortunes; 
they have been moderately and justly prosperous, by reason of dealing 
fairly with their customers, competitors, and employees. They are 
satisfied with a legitimate profit that will pay their expenses of living 
and lay by something for those who come after, and the additional 
amount necessary for the betterment and improvement of their 
plant. The average business man of this type is, as a rule, a leading 
citizen of his community, foremost in everything that tells for its 
betterment, a man whom his neighbors look up to and respect; he 
is in no sense dangerous to his community, just because lie is an 
integral part of his community, bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. 
His life fibers are intertwined with the life fibers of his fellow citizens. 
Yet nowadaj^s many men of this kind, when they come to make 
necessary trade agreements with one another, find themselves in 
danger of becoming unwitting transgressors of the law, and are at a 
loss to know what the law forbids and what it permits. This is all 
wrong. There should be a fixed governmental policy, a policy which 
shall clearly define and punish wrongdoing, and shall give in advance 
full information to any man as to just what he can and just what he 
can not legally and properly do. It is absurd and wicked to treat 
the deliberate lawbreaker as on an exact par with the man eager to 
obey the law, whose only desire is to find out from some competent 
governmental authority what the law is and then live up to it. It is 
absurd to endeavor to regulate business in the interest of the public 
by means of long-drawn lawsuits without any accompaniment of 
administrative control and regulation, and without any attempt to 
discriminate between the honest man who has succeded in business 
because of rendering a service to the public and the dishonest man 
who has succeeded in business by cheating the public. 

So much for the small business man and the middle-sized business 
man. Now for big business. It is imperative to exercise over big 
business a control and supervision which is unnecessary as regards 
small business. All business must be conducted under the law, and 
all business men, big or little, must act justly. But a wicked big inter¬ 
est is necessarily more dangerous to the community than a wicked 
little interest. “ Big business ” in the past has been responsible for 
much of the special privilege which must be unsparingly cut out of 
our national life. I do not believe in making mere size of and by 
itself criminal. The mere fact of size, however, does unquestionably 
carry the potentiality of such grave wrongdoing that there should be 
by law provision made for the strict supervision and regulation of 
these great industrial concerns doing an interstate business, much as 
we now regulate the transportation agencies which are engaged in 
interstate business. The antitrust law does good in so far as it can 
be invoked against combinations which really are monopolies or 
which restrict production or which artificially raise prices. But in 
so far as its workings are uncertain, or as it threatens corporations 
which have not been guilty of antisocial conduct, it does harm. 
Moreover, it can not by itself accomplish more than a trifling part 
of the governmental regulation of big business which is needed. The 
Nation and the States must cooperate in this matter. Among the 


8 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


States that have entered this field Wisconsin has taken a leading 
place. Following Senator La Follette, a number of practical work¬ 
ers and thinkers in Wisconsin have turned that State into an experi¬ 
mental laboratory of wise governmental action in aid of social and 
industrial justice. They have initiated the kind of progressive gov¬ 
ernment wliich means not merely the preservation of true democracy, 
but the extension of the principle of true democracy into industrial¬ 
ism as well as into politics. One prime reason why the State has 
been so successful in this policy lies in the fact that it has done justice 
to corporations precisely as it has exacted justice from them. Its 
public utilities commission in a recent report answered certain critics 
as follows: 

To be generous to the people of the State at the expense of justice to the 
carriers would be a species of official brigandage that ought to hold the perpe¬ 
trators up to the execration of all honest men. Indeed, we have no idea that 
the people of Wisconsin have the remotest desire to deprive the railroads of the 
State of aught that, in equality and good conscience, belongs to them, and if any 
of them have, their wishes can not be gratified by this commission. 

This is precisely the attitude we should take toward big business. 
It is the practical application of the principle of the square deal. Not 
only as a matter of justice, but in our own interest, we should scru¬ 
pulously respect the rights of honest and decent business and should 
encourage it where its activities make, as they do make, for the com¬ 
mon good. It is for the advantage of all of us when business prospers. 
It is for the advantage of all of us to have the United States become 
the leading nation in international trade, and we should not deprive 
this Nation, we should not deprive this people, of the instruments 
best adapted to secure such international commercial supremacy. 
In other words, our demand is that big business give the people a 
square deal and that the people give a square deal to any man engaged 
in big business who honestly endeavors to do what is right and proper. 

On the other hand, any corporation, big or little, which has gained 
its position by unfair methods and by interference with the rights 
of others, which has raised prices or limited output in improper fash¬ 
ion and been guilty of demoralizing and corrupt practices, should not 
only be broken up, but it should be made the business of some com¬ 
petent governmental body by constant supervision to see that it does 
not come together again, save under such strict control as to insure 
the community against all danger of a repetition of the bad conduct. 
The chief trouble with big business has arisen from the fact that big 
business has so often refused to abide by the principle of the square 
deal; the opposition which I personally have encountered from big 
business has in every case arisen not because I did not give a square 
deal but because I did. 

All business into which the element of monopoly in any way or 
degree enters, and where it proves in practice impossible totally to 
eliminate this element of monopoly, should be carefully supervised, 
regulated, and controlled by governmental authority; and such con¬ 
trol should be exercised by administrative, rather than by judicial 
officers. No effort should be made to destroy a big corporation merely 
because it is big, merely because it has shown itself a peculiarly efficient 
business instrument. But we should not fear, if necessary, to bring 
the regulation of big corporations to the point of controlling condi¬ 
tions so that the wageworker shall have a wage more than sufficient 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


9 


to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor not so excessive 
as to wreck his strength by the strain of unending toil and leave him 
unfit to do his duty as a good citizen in the community. Where regu¬ 
lation by competition (which is, of course* preferable) proves insuffi¬ 
cient, we should not shrink from bringing governmental regulation 
to the point of control of monopoly prices, if it should ever become 
necessary to do so, just as in exceptional cases railway rates are now 
regulated. 

In emphasizing the part of the administrative department in 
regulating combinations and checking absolute monopoly, I do not, 
of course, overlook the obvious fact that the legislature and the 
judiciary must do their part. The legislature should make it more 
clear exactly what methods are illegal, and then the judiciary will 
be in a better position to punish adequately and relentlessly those 
who insist on defying the clear legislative decrees. I do not believe 
any absolute private monopoly is j ustified, but if our great combina¬ 
tions are properly supervised, so that immoral practices are pre¬ 
vented, absolute monopoly will not come to pass, as the laws of 
competition and efficiency are against it. 

The important thing is this, that under such Government recogni¬ 
tion as we may give to that which is beneficent and wholesome in 
large business organizations we shall be most vigilant never to allow 
them to crystallize into a condition which shall make private initia¬ 
tive difficult. It is of the utmost importance that in the future we 
shall keep the broad path of opportunity just as open and easy for 
our children as it was for our fathers during the period which has 
been the glory of America’s industrial history; that it shall be not only 
possible but easy for an ambitious man, whose character has so im¬ 
pressed itself upon his neighbors that they are willing to give him 
capital and credit to start in business for himself, and, if his superior 
efficiency deserves it, to triumph over the biggest organization that 
may happen to exist in his particular field. Whatever practices upon 
the part of large combinations may threaten to discourage such a 
man, or deny to him that which in the judgment of the community 
is a square deal should be specifically defined by the statutes as 
crimes. And in every case the individual corporation officer re¬ 
sponsible for such unfair dealing should be punished. 

We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and 
sagacity exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. 
We have only praise for the business man whose business success 
comes as an incident to doing good work for his fellows. But we 
should so shape conditions that a fortune shall be obtained only in 
honorable fashion, in such fashion that its gaining represents benefit 
to the community. 

In a word, then, our fundamental purpose must be to secure genu¬ 
ine equality of opportunity. No man should receive a dollar unless 
that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should 
represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered. No watering of stocks 
should be permitted; and it can be prevented only by close govern¬ 
mental supervision of all stock issues so as to prevent overcapitali¬ 
zation. 

We stand for the rights of property but we stand even more for the 
rights of man. We will protect the rights of the wealthy man, but 
we maintain that he holds his wealth subject to the general right of 

145516—S. Doc. 348, 62-2-2 


10 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


the community to regulate its business use as the public welfare 
requires. 

We also maintain that the Nation and the several States have the 
right to regulate the terms-and conditions of labor, which is the chief 
element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. It 
is our prime duty to shape the industrial and social forces so that 
they may tell for the material and moral upbuilding of the farmer 
and the wageworker, just as they should do in the case of the busi¬ 
ness man. You framers of this constitution be careful so to frame it 
that under it the people shall leave themselves free to do whatever 
is necessary in order to help the farmers of the State to get for them¬ 
selves and their wives and children not only the benefits of better 
farming but also those of better business methods and better condi¬ 
tions of life on the farm. 

Moreover, shape your constitutional action so that the people will 
be able, through their legislative bodies, or, failing that, by direct 
popular vote, to provide workmen’s compensation acts, to regulate 
the hours of labor for children and for women, to provide for their 
safety while at work, and to prevent overwork or work under un¬ 
hygienic or unsafe conditions. See to it that no restrictions are 
placed upon legislative powers that will prevent the enactment of 
laws under which your people can promote the general welfare, the 
common good. Thus only will the “ general welfare ” clause of our 
Constitution become a vital force for progress, instead of remaining 
a mere phrase. This also applies to the police powers of the Govern¬ 
ment. Make it perfectly clear that on every point of this kind it is 
your intention that the people shall decide for themselves how far 
the laws to achieve their purposes shall go, and that their decision 
shall be binding upon every, citizen in the State, official or nonofficial, 
unless, of course, the Supreme Court of the Nation in any given case 
decides otherwise. 

So much for the ends of government; and I have, of course,merely 
sketched in outline what the ends should be. Now for the machinery 
by which these ends are to be achieved; and here again, remember 
I only sketch in outline and do not for a moment pretend to work 
out in detail the methods of achieving your purposes. Let me at the 
outset urge upon you to remember that, while machinery is impor¬ 
tant, it is easy to overestimate its importance; and, moreover, that 
each community has the absolute right to determine for itself what 
that machinery shall be, subject only to the fundamental law of the 
Nation as expressed in the Constitution of the United .States. Massa¬ 
chusetts has the right to have appointive judges who serve during 
good behavior, subject to removal, not by impeachment, but by 
simple majority vote of the two houses of the legislature whenever 
the representatives of the people feel that the needs of the people 
require such removal. New York has the right to have a long-term 
elective judiciary. Ohio has the right to have a short-term elective 
judiciary without the recall. California, Oregon, and Arizona have 
each and every one of them the right to have a short-term elective 
judiciary with the recall. Personally, of the four systems I prefer the 
Massachusetts one, if addition be made to it as I hereinafter indi¬ 
cate; but that is merely my preference; and neither I nor anyone 
-else within or without public life has the right to impose his preference 
upon any community when the question is as to how that community 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


11 


chooses to arrange for its executive, legislative, or judicial functions. 
But as you have invited me to address you here, I will give you my 
views as to the kind of governmental machinery which at this time 
and under existing social and industrial conditions it seems to me 
that, as a people, we need. 

In the first place, I believe in the short ballot. You can not get 
good service from the public servant if you can not see him, and there 
is no more effective wav of hiding him than by mixing him up with a 
multitude of others so that they are none of them important enough 
to catch the eye of the average, workaday citizen. The crook in 
public life is not ordinarily the man whom the people themselves 
elect directly to a highly important and responsible position. The 
type of boss who has made the name of politician odious rarely him¬ 
self runs for high elective office; and if he does and is elected, the 
people have only themselves to blame. The professional politician 
and the professional lobbyist thrive most rankly under a system 
which provides a multitude of elective officers, of such divided respon¬ 
sibility and of such obscurity that the public knows, and can know, 
hut little as to their duties and the way they perform them. The 
people have nothing whatever to fear from giving any public servant 
power so long as they retain their own power to hold him accountable 
for his use of the power they have delegated to him. You will get 
best service where you elect only a few men, and where each man has 
his definite duties and responsibilities, and is obliged to work in the 
open, so that the people know who he is and what he is doing, and 
have the information that will enable them to hold him to account 
for his stewardship. 

I believe in providing for direct nominations by the people, includ¬ 
ing therein direct preferential primaries for the election of delegates 
to the national nominating conventions. Not as a matter of theory, 
but as a matter of plain and proved experience, we find that the 
convention system, while it often records the popular will, is also 
often used by adroit politicians as a method of thwarting the popu¬ 
lar will. In other words, the existing machinery for nominations is 
cumbrous, and is not designed to secure the real expression of the 
popular desire. Now, as good citizens we are all of us willing to 
acquiesce cheerfully in a nomination secured by the expression of a 
majority of the people, but we do not like to acquiesce in a nomina¬ 
tion secured by adroit political management in defeating the wish 
of the majority of the people. 

I believe in the election of United States Senators by direct vote. 
Just as actual experience convinced our people that Presidents should 
be elected (as they now are in practice, although not in theory) by 
direct vote of the people instead of by indirect vote through an 
untrammeled electoral college, so actual experience has convinced 
us that Senators should be elected by direct vote of the people in¬ 
stead of indirectly through the various legislatures. 

I believe in the initiative and the referendum, which should be 
used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it 
whenever it becomes misrepresentative. Here, again, I am con¬ 
cerned not with theories but with actual facts. If in any State 
the people are themselves satisfied with their present representative 
system, then it is of course their right to keep that system unchanged; 


12 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


and it is nobody’s business but theirs. But in actual practice it has 
been found in very many States that legislative bodies have not been, 
responsive to the popular will. Therefore I believe that the State 
should provide for the possibility of direct popular action in order 
to make good such legislative failure. The power to invoke such: 
direct action, both by initiative and by referendum, should be pro¬ 
vided in such fashion as to prevent its being wantonly or too fre¬ 
quently used. I do not believe that it should be made the easy or 
ordinary way of taking action. In the great majority of cases it 
is far better that action on legislative matters should be taken by 
those specially delegated to perform the task; in other words, that 
the work should be done by the experts chosen to perform it. But 
where the men thus delegated fail to perform their duty, then it 
should be in the power of the people themselves to perform the duty. 
In a recent speech Gov. McGovern, of Wisconsin, has described the 
plan which has been there adopted. Under this plan the effort to 
obtain the law is first to be made through the legislature, the bill 
being pushed as far as it will go; so that the details of the proposed 
measure may be thrashed over in actual legislative debate. This 
gives opportunity to perfect it in form and invites public scrutiny. 
Then, if the legislature fails to enact it, it can be enacted by the 
people on their own initiative, taken at least four months before 
election. Moreover, where possible, the question actually to be voted 
on by the people should be made as simple as possible. 

In short, I believe that the initiative and referendum should be 
used, not as substitutes for representative government, but as methods 
of making such government really representative. Action by the 
initiative or referendum ought not to be the normal way of legisla¬ 
tion ; but the power to take it should be provided in the constitution,, 
so that if the representatives fail truly to represent the people on 
some matter of sufficient importance to rouse popular interest, then 
the people shall have in their hands the facilities to make good the* 
failure. And I urge you not to try to put constitutional fetters on the 
legislature, as so many constitution makers have recently done. Such 
action on your part would invite the courts to render nugatory every 
legislative act to better social conditions. Give the legislature an 
entirely free hand; and then provide by the initiative and referen¬ 
dum that the people shall have power to reverse or supplement the* 
work of the legislature should it ever become necessary. 

As to the recall, I do not believe that there is any great necessity 
for it as regards short-term elective officers. On abstract grounds 
I was originally inclined to be hostile to it. I know of one case where* 
it was actually used with mischievous results. On the other hand, 
in three cases in municipalities on the Pacific coast which have come 
to my knowledge it was used with excellent results. I believe it 
should be generally provided, but with such restrictions as will make 
it available only when there is a widespread and genuine public feel¬ 
ing among a majority of the voters, 

There remains the question of the recall of judges. One of the 
ablest jurists in the United States, a veteran in service to the people, 
recently wrote me as follows on this subject: 

There are two causes of the agitation for the recall as applied to judges. 
First, the administration of justice has withdrawn from life and become arti¬ 
ficial and technical. The recall is not so much a recall of judges from office 



A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


13 


as it is a recall of the administration of justice back to life, so that it shall be¬ 
come, as it ought to be, the most elfieient of all agencies for making this earth 
a better place to live in. Judges have set their rules above life. Like the 
Pharisees of old, they have said, “ The people be accursed, they know not the 
law ” (that is our “ rule"). Courts have repeatedly defeated the aroused moral 
sentiment of a whole commonwealth. Take the example of the St. Louis 
boodlers. Their guilt was plain, and in the main confessed. The whole State 
was aroused and outraged. By an instinct that goes to the very foundation of 
all social order they demadcd that the guilty be punished. The boodlers were 
convicted, but the Supreme Court of Missouri, never questioning their guilt, 
set their conviction aside upon purely technical grounds. The same thing 
occurred in California. Nero, fiddling over burning Rome, was a patriot and a 
statesman in comparison with judges who thus trifle with and frustrate the 
aroused moral sentiment of a great people, for that sentiment is politically the 
vital breath of both State and Nation. It is to recall the administration of jus¬ 
tice back from such practices that the recent agitation has arisen. 

Second, by the abuse of the power to declare iaws unconstitutional the 
courts have become a lawmaking instead of a law-enforcing agency. Here 
again the settled will of society to correct confessed evils has been set at 
naught by those who place metaphysics above life. It is the courts, not the 
constitutions, that are at fault. It is only by the process which James Russell 
Lowell, when answering the critics of Lincoln, called “pettifogging the con¬ 
stitution ” that constitutions which were designed to protect society can thus 
be made to defeat the common good. Here again the recall is a recall of the 
administration of justice back from academical refinement to social service. 

An independent and upright judiciary which fearlessly stands for 
the right, even against popular clamor, but which also understands 
and sympathizes with popular needs, is a great asset of popular gov¬ 
ernment. There is no public servant and no private man whom I 
place above a judge of the best type, and very few whom I rank beside 
him. I believe in the cumulative value of the law and in its value as 
an impersonal, disinterested basis of control. I believe in the neces¬ 
sity for the courts’ interpretation of the law as law without the power 
to change the law or to substitute some other thing than law for it. 
But I agree with every great jurist, from Marshall downward, when 
T say that every judge is bound to consider two separate elements in 
his decision of a case, one the terms of the law, and the other the con¬ 
ditions of actual life to which the law is to be applied. Only by 
taking both of these elements into account is it possible to apply the 
law as its spirit and intent demand that it be applied. Both law and 
life are to be considered in order that the law and the Constitution 
shall become, in John Marshall’s word, “ a living instrument and not 
a dead letter.” Justice between man and man, between the State 
and its citizens, is a living thing, whereas legalistic justice is a dead 
thing. Moreover, never forget that the judge is just as much the 
servant of the people as any other official. Of course, he must act 
conscientiously. So must every other official. He must not do 
anything wrong because there is popular clamor for it any more than 
under similar circumstances a governor or a legislator or a public 
utilities commissioner should do wrong. Each must follow his 
conscience, even though to do so costs him his place. But in their 
turn the people must follow their conscience, and when they have 
definitely decided on a given policy they must have public servants 
who will carry out that policy. 

Keep clearly in mind the distinction between the end and the means 
to attain that end. Our aim is to get the type of judge that I have 
described, to keep him on the bench as long as possible, and to keep 
off the bench and. if necessary, take off the bench the wrong type 


14 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


of judge. In some communities one method may work well which in 
other communities does not work well, and each community should 
adopt and preserve or reject a given method according to its practical 
working. Therefore the question of applying the recall in any shape 
is one of expediency merely. Each community has a right to try the 
experiment for itself in whatever shape it pleases. Under the con¬ 
ditions set forth in the extract from the letter given above, I would 
personally have favored the recall of the judges both in California 
and in Missouri, for no damage that could have been done by the 
recall would have equaled the damage done to the community by 
judges whose conduct had revolted not only the spirit of justice, 
but the spirit of common sense. I do not believe in adopting the 
recall save as a last resort, when it has become clearly evident that 
no other course will achieve the desired result. But either the re¬ 
call will have to be adopted or else it will have to be made much 
easier than it now is to get rid, not merely of a bad judge, but 
of a judge who, however virtuous, has grown so out of touch with 
social needs and facts that he is unfit longer to render good service 
on the bench. It is nonsense to say that impeachment meets the diffi¬ 
culty. In actual practice we have found that impeachment does not 
work, that unfit judges stay on the bench in spite of it, and indeed 
because of the fact that impeachment is the only remedy that can 
be used against them. Where such is the actual fact it is idle 
to discuss the theory of the case. Impeachment as a remedy for 
the ills of which the people justly complain is a complete failure. 
A quicker, a more summary, remedy is needed: some remedy at 
least as summary and as drastic as that embodied in the Massa¬ 
chusetts constitution. And whenever it be found in actual practice 
that such remedy does not give the needed results, I would unhesi¬ 
tatingly adopt the recall. 

But there is one kind of recall in which I very earnestly believe, 
and the immediate adoption of which I urge. There are sound rea¬ 
sons for being cautious about the recall of a good judge who has ren¬ 
dered an unwise and improper decision. Every public servant, no 
matter hoiv valuable, and not omitting Washington or Lincoln or 
Marshall, at times makes mistakes. Therefore we should be cautious 
about recalling the judge, and we should be cautious about interfering 
in any way with the judge in decisions which he makes in the 
ordinary course as between individuals. But when a judge decides 
a constitutional question, when lie decides what the people as a 
Avhole can or cannot do, the people should have the right to re¬ 
call that decision if they think it wrong. We should hold the judi¬ 
ciary in all respect; but it is both absurd and degrading to make 
a fetish of a judge or of anyone else. Abraham Lincoln said, 
in his first inaugural: 

If the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole peo¬ 
ple is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, * * * the 

people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent prac¬ 
tically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. 
Nor is there in this view any assault upon the courts or the judges. 

Lincoln actually applied in successful fashion the principle of the 
recall in the Dred Scott case. He denounced the Supreme Court for 
that iniquitous decision in language much stronger than I have ever 
used in criticizing any court, and appealed to the people to recall the 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


15 


decision—the word u recall ” in this connection was not then known, 
but the phrase exactly describes what he advocated. He was suc¬ 
cessful, the people took his view, and the decision was practically 
recalled. It became a dead letter without the need- of any consti¬ 
tutional amendment. In any contest to-day where the people stand 
for justice and the courts do not, the man who supports the courts 
against the people is untrue to the memory of Lincoln, and shows 
that he is the spiritual heir, not of the men who followed and sup¬ 
ported Lincoln, but of the Cotton Whigs who supported Chief Jus¬ 
tice Taney and denounced Lincoln for attacking the courts and the 
Constitution. 

Under our Federal system the remedj^ for a wrong such as Abra¬ 
ham Lincoln described is difficult. But the remedy is not difficult in 
a State. What the Supreme Court of the Nation decides to be law 
binds both the national and the State courts and all the people 
within the boundaries of the Nation. But the decision of a State 
court on a constitutional question should be subject to revision by the 
people of the State. Again and again in the past justice has been 
scandalously obstructed by State courts declaring State laws in con¬ 
flict with the Federal Constitution, although the Supreme Court of 
the Nation had never so decided or had even decided in a contrary 
sense. When the supreme court of the State declares a given statute 
unconstitutional because in conflict with the State or the National 
Constitution, its opinion should be subject to revision by the people 
themselves. Such an opinion ought always to be treated with great 
respect by the people, and unquestionably in the majority of cases 
would be accepted and followed by them. But actual experience has 
shown the vital need of the people reserving to themselves the right to 
pass upon such opinion. If any considerable number of the people 
feel that the decision is in defiance of justice, they should be given 
the right by petition to bring before the voters at same subsequent 
election, special or otherwise, as might be decided, and after the full¬ 
est opportunity for deliberation and debate, the question whether or 
not the judges’ interpretation of the Constitution is to be sustained. 
If it is sustained, well and good. If not, then the popular verdict is 
to be accepted as final, the decision is to be treated as reversed, and 
the construction of the Constitution definitely decided—subject only 
to action by the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Many eminent lawyers who mare or less frankly disbelieve in our 
entire American system of government for, by, and of the people, 
violently antagonize this proposal. They believe, and sometimes 
assert, that the American people are not fitted for popular govern¬ 
ment, and that it is necessary to keep the judiciary “ independent of 
the majority or of all the people ”; that there must be no appeal to the 
people from the decision of a court in any case; and that therefore 
the judges are to be established as sovereign rulers over the people. 
I take absolute issue with all those who hold such a position. I re¬ 
gard it as a complete negation of our whole system of government; 
and if it became the dominant position in this country, it would 
mean the absolute upsetting of both the rights and the rule of the 
people. If the American people are not fit for popular govern¬ 
ment, and if they should of right be the servants and not the masters 
of the men whom they themselves put in office, then Lincoln’s work 


16 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


was wasted and the whole system of government upon which this 
great democratic Republic rests is a failure. I believe, on the con¬ 
trary, with all my heart, that the American people are fit for com¬ 
plete self-government, and that, in spite of all our failings and short¬ 
comings, we of this Republic have more nearly realized than any 
other people on earth the ideal of justice attained through genuine 
popular rule. The position which these eminent lawyers take and 
applaud is of necessity a condemnation of Lincoln’s whole life; for 
his great public career began and was throughout conditioned by his 
insistence in the Dred Scott case, upon the fact that the American 
people were the masters and not the servants of even the highest 
court in the land, and were thereby the final interpreters of the 
Constitution. If the courts have the final say so on all legislative 
acts, and if no appeal can lie from them to the people, then they are 
the irresponsible masters of the people. The only tenable excuse for 
such a position is the frank avowal that the people lack sufficient in¬ 
telligence and morality to be fit to govern themselves. . In other words, 
those who take this position hold that the people have enough intelli¬ 
gence to frame and adopt a constitution, but not enough intelligence 
to apply and interpret the Constitution which they have themselves 
made. Those who take this position hold that the people are compe¬ 
tent to choose officials to whom they delegate certain powers, but 
not competent to hold these officials responsible for the way they 
exercise these powers. 

Now the power to interpret is the power to establish; and, if the 
people are not to be allowed finally to interpret the fundamental 
law, ours is not a popular government. The true view is that legis¬ 
lators and judges alike are the servants of the people, who have been 
created by the people just as the people have created the Constitu¬ 
tion; and they hold only such power as the people have for the 
time being delegated to them. If these two sets or public servants 
disagree as to the amounts of power respectively delegated to them 
by the people under the Constitution, and if the case is of sufficient 
importance, then, as a matter of course, it should be the right of the 
people themselves to decide between them. 

I do not say that the people are infallible. But I do say that our 
whole history shows that the American people are more often sound 
in their decisions than is the case with any of the governmental 
bodies to whom, for their convenience, they have delegated portions 
of their power. If this is not so, then there is no justification for the 
existence of our Government ; and if it is so, then there is no justifi¬ 
cation for refusing to give the people the real, and not merely the 
nominal, ultimate decision on questions of constitutional law. Just 
as the people, and not the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Taney, 
were wise in their decisions of the vital questions of their day, so 1 
hold that now the American people as a whole have shown them¬ 
selves wiser than the courts in the way they have approached and 
dealt with such vital questions of our day as those concerning the 
proper control of big corporations and of securing their rights to 
industrial workers. 

Here I am not dealing with theories; I am dealing with actual 
facts. In New York, in Illinois, in Connecticut, lamentable in¬ 
justice has been perpetuated, often for many years, by decisions 


A CHARTER OE DEMOCRACY. 


17 


of the State courts refusing to permit the people of the States 
to exercise their right as a free people to do their duty as a con¬ 
scientious people in removing grave wrong and social injus¬ 
tice. These foolish and iniquitous decisions have almost always 
been rendered at the expense of the weak; they have almost 
always been the means of putting a stop to the effort to remove 
burdens from wageworkers, to secure to men who toil on the farm 
and on the railway, or in the factory, better and safer conditions 
of labor and of life. Often the judges who have rendered these 
decisions have been entirely well-meaning men, who, however, did 
not know life as they knew law, and who championed some outworn 
political philosophy which they assumed to impose on the people. 
Their associations and surroundings were such that they had no con¬ 
ception of the cruelty and wrong their decisions caused and perpet¬ 
uated. Their prime concern was with the empty ceremonial of per¬ 
functory legalism, and not with the living spirit of justice. A typiqal 
case was the decision rendered but a few months ago by the court of 
appeals of my own State, the State of New York, declaring unconsti¬ 
tutional the workmen's compensation act. In their decision the 
judges admitted the wrong and the suffering caused by the practices 
against which the law was aimed. They admitted that other civilized 
nations had abolished these wrongs and practices. But they took 
the ground that the Constitution of the United States, instead of be¬ 
ing an instrument to secure justice, had been ingeniously devised ab¬ 
solutely to prevent justice. They insisted that the clause in the Con¬ 
stitution which forbade the taking of property without due process 
of law forbade the effort which had been made in the law to distribute 
among all the partners in an enterprise the effects of the injuries to 
life or limb of a wageworker. In other words, they insisted that the 
Constitution had permanently cursed our people with impotence to 
right wrong, and had perpetuated a cruel iniquity; for cruel iniquity 
* is not too harsh a term to use in describing the law which, in the event 
of such an accident, binds the whole burden of crippling disaster on 
the shoulders least able to bear it—the shoulders of the crippled man 
himself, or of the dead man’s helpless wife and children. No anar¬ 
chist orator, raving against the Constitution, ever frained an indict¬ 
ment of it so severe as these worthy and well-meaning judges must be 
held to have framed if their reasoning be accepted as true. But, as a 
matter of fact, their reasoning was unsound, and was as repugnant to 
every sound defender of the Constitution as to every believer in jus¬ 
tice "and righteousness. In effect, their decision was that we could 
not remedy these wrongs unless we amended the Constitution (not 
the constitution of the State, but the Constitution of the Nation) by 
saying that property could be taken without due process of law! It 
seems incredible that anyone should be willing to take such a position. 
It is a position that has been condemned over and over again by the 
wisest and most far-seeing courts. In its essence it was reversed by 
the decision of State courts in States like Washington and Iowa, and 
by the Supreme Court of the Nation in a case but a few weeks old. 

" I call this decision to the attention of those who shake their heads 
at the proposal to trust the people to decide for themselves what 
their own governmental policy shall be in these matters. I know of 
no popular vote by any State of the Union more flagrant in its de- 


18 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


fiance of right and justice, more shortsighted in its inability to face 
the changed needs of our civilization, than this decision by the high¬ 
est court of the State of New York. Many of the judges of that 
court I know personally, and for them I have a profound regard. 
Even for as flagrant a decision as this I would not vote for their 
recall; for I have no doubt the decision was rendered in accordance 
with their ideas of duty. But most emphatically I do wish that the 
people should have the right to recall the decision itself, and authori¬ 
tatively to stamp with disapproval what can not but seem to the 
ordinary plain citizen a monstrous misconstruction of the Constitu¬ 
tion, a monstrous perversion of the Constitution into an instrument 
for the perpetuation of social and industrial wrong and for the ap- 
pression of the weak and helpless. No ordinary amendment to the 
Constitution would meet this type of case; and intolerable delay and 
injustice would be caused by the effort to get such amendment—not to 
mention the fact that the very judges who are at fault would proceed 
to'construe the amendment. In such a case the fault is not with the 
Constitution; the fault is in the judges’ construction of the Constitu¬ 
tion; and what is required is power for the people to reverse this 
false and wrong construction. 

I wish I could make you visualize to yourselves what these deci¬ 
sions against which I so vehemently protest realty represent of suf¬ 
fering and injustice. I wish I had the power to bring before you the 
man maimed or dead, the woman and children left to struggle 
against bitter poverty because the breadwinner has gone. I am not 
thinking of the terminology of the decision, nor of what seem to me 
the hair-splitting and meticulous arguments elaborately worked out 
to justify a great and a terrible miscarriage of justice. Moreover, I 
am not thinking only of the sufferers in any given case, but of the 
tens of thousands of others who suffer because of the way this case is 
decided. In the New York case the railway employee who was in¬ 
jured was a man named, I believe, Ives. The court admits that by 
every moral consideration he was entitled to recover as his due the 
money that the law intended to give him. Yet the court by its deci¬ 
sion forces that man to stagger through life maimed, and keeps the 
money that should be his in the treasury of the company in whose 
service, as an incident of his regular employment and in the endur¬ 
ance of ordinary risks, he lost the ability to earn his own livelihood. 
There are thousands of Iveses in this country; thousands of cases 
such as this come up every year; and while this is true, while the 
courts deny essential and elementary justice to these men and give to 
them and the people in exchange for justice a technical and empty 
formula, it is idle to ask me not to criticize them. As long as injus¬ 
tice is kept thus intrenched by any court* I will protest as strongly as 
in me lies against such action. Remember, when I am asking the 
people themselves in the last resort to interpret the law which they 
themselves have made, that after all I am only asking that they step 
in and authoritatively reconcile the conflicting decisions of the courts. 
In all these cases the judges and courts have decided every which 
way, and it is foolish to talk of the sanctity of a judge-made law 
which half of the judges strongly denounce. If there must be deci¬ 
sion by a close majority, then let the people step in and let it be their 
majority that decides. 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


19 


According to one of the highest judges then and now on the 
Supreme Court of the Nation, we had lived for a hundred years 
under a Constitution which permitted a national income tax, until 
suddenly by one vote the Supreme Court reversed its previous de¬ 
cisions for a century and said that for a century we had been liv¬ 
ing under wrong interpretation of the Constitution (that is, under 
a wrong Constitution), and therefore in effect established a new 
Constitution which we are now laboriously trying to amend, so as to 
get it back to be the Constitution that for a hundred years every¬ 
body, including the Supreme Court, thought it to be. When I was 
President we passed a national workmen’s compensation act. Under 
it a railway man named Howard, I think, was killed in Tennessee, and 
his widow sued for damages. Congress had done all it could to pro¬ 
vide the right, but the court stepped in and decreed that Congress 
had failed. Three of the judges took the extreme position that there 
was no way in which Congress could act to secure the helpless widow 
and children against suffering, and that the man’s blood and the 
blood of all similar men when spilled should forever cry aloud in vain 
for justice. This seems a strong statement, but it is far less strong 
than the actual facts; and I have difficulty in making the statement 
with any degree of moderation. The nine Justices of the Supreme 
Court on this question split into five fragments. One man. Justice 
Moody, in his opinion stated the case in its broadest way and 
demanded justice for Howard, on grounds that would have meant 
that in all similar cases thereafter justice and not injustice should 
be done. Yet the court, by a majority of one, decided as I do not 
for one moment believe the court would now decide, and not only 
perpetuated a lamentable injustice in the case of the man himself, 
but set a standard of injustice for all similar cases. Here again I ask 
you not to think of the mere legal formalism, but to think of the 
great immutable principles of justice, the great immutable principles 
of right and wrong, and to ponder what it means to men dependent 
for their livelihood, and to the women and children dependent upon 
these men, when the courts of the land deny them the justice to 
which they are entitled. 

Now, gentlemen, in closing, and in thanking you for your courtesy, 
let me add one word. Keep clearly in view what are the fundamental 
ends of government. Remember that methods are merely the ma¬ 
chinery by which these ends are to be achieved. I hope that not only 
you and I but all our people may ever remember that while good 
laws are necessary, while it is necessary to have the right kind of 
governmental machinery, yet that the all-important matter is to have 
the right kind of man behind the law. A State can not rise without 
proper laws, but the best laws that the wit of man can devise will 
amount to nothing if the State does not contain the right kind of man, 
the right kind of woman. A good constitution, and good laws under 
the constitution, and fearless and upright officials to administer the 
laws—all these are necessary; but the prime requisite in our national 
life is, and must always be, the possession by the average citizen of 
the right kind of character. Our aim must be the moralization of the 
individual, of the government, of the people as a whole. We desire 
the moralization not only of a political conditions but of industrial 
conditions, so that every force in the community, individual and col- 


20 


A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


lective, may be directed toward securing for th 
average woman, a higher and better and fuller 1 
the body no less than those of the mind and the s 0 012 054 261 8 



mr. Roosevelt’s letter to the governors. 

New York, February 1912. 

Gentlemen : I deeply appreciate your letter, and I realize to the 
full the heavy responsibility it puts upon me, expressing as it does the 
carefully considered convictions of the men elected by popular vote 
to stand as the heads of government in their several States. 

I absolutely agree with you that this matter is not one to be de¬ 
cided with any reference to the personal preferences or interests of 
any man, but purely from the standpoint of the interests of the peo¬ 
ple as a whole. I will accept the nomination for President if it is 
tendered to me, and I will adhere to this decision until the conven¬ 
tion has expressed its preference. 

One of the chief principles for which I have stood, and for which I 
now stand, and which I have always endeavored and always shall 
endeavor to reduce to action, is the genuine rule of the people; and 
therefore I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the 
chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to 
who shall be the nominee of the Republican presidential convention. 

Very truly, yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 






































